Mike Elko calls TexAgs a cesspool as Texas A&M falls to 3-3

The game was over well before the final whistle. Missouri ran the ball down A&M's throat all night, and the Aggies never got into the end zone.

Ross Dellenger

@RossDellenger

Missouri just iced it against Texas A&M, taking a 27-6 lead. Tigers have nearly 250 yards rushing. The Aggies, one of this season's biggest disappointments, have lost three of four games and will drop to 3-3.

Missouri's Jamal Roberts did most of the damage. He carried it 34 times for a career-high 222 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 54-yarder late that sealed it. Marcel Reed went 19-of-39 for 189 yards with 2 interceptions, and A&M finished with 29 rushing yards as a team. That's 3 losses in 4 games, all by double digits. A&M is 1-3 in the SEC, and any real College Football Playoff hopes are pretty much gone at the halfway mark.

Then Elko got asked what he'd say to Aggie fans who are losing faith, and he didn't try to calm anybody down. "There's a difference to me between the fan base and social media. So there's one group that I really don't care much about. Billy's cesspool (at TexAgs) can go be Billy's cesspool," he said, before telling everyone else to "stay with us, be behind us. We're going to build something that we told you we were going to build. So we're in a really bad spot right now, but we'll work our way out of it."

Chris Vannini

@ChrisVannini

Texas A&M was ranked No. 3 eight games ago and we've already reached the stage of calling out the message boards after a game.

Carter Karels@CarterKarels

Asked Texas A&M coach Mike Elko what he'd say to Aggie fans who are losing faith in the team. "There's a difference to me between the fan base and social media. So there's one group that I really don't care much about. Billy's cesspool (at TexAgs) can go be Billy's cesspool. Our fan base, stay with us, be behind us. We're going to build something that we told you we were going to build. So we're in a really bad spot right now, but we'll work our way out of it."

That's the part that stings. This was a top-3 program 8 games ago, and now the head coach is fighting with a message board in a postgame press conference. Elko had been unbeaten in October at A&M before this one, his first loss in 9 October games in College Station, and he's now 5-6 against ranked teams with the Aggies. A coach usually picks a fight with the internet when he's on a heater, not when the team is falling apart.

Chris Low

@Clowfb

Gotta feeling this won’t go over well. Lotta people on TexAgs are longtime season-ticket holders and have given generously over the years to Texas A&M football.

Carter Karels@CarterKarels

Asked Texas A&M coach Mike Elko what he'd say to Aggie fans who are losing faith in the team. "There's a difference to me between the fan base and social media. So there's one group that I really don't care much about. Billy's cesspool (at TexAgs) can go be Billy's cesspool. Our fan base, stay with us, be behind us. We're going to build something that we told you we were going to build. So we're in a really bad spot right now, but we'll work our way out of it."

That's the risk Elko took. TexAgs isn't some anonymous burner-account swamp. Plenty of the people posting there buy the season tickets and write the checks, and at a school like A&M, where boosters have a long track record of getting what they want, telling them to go be a cesspool is a strange way to buy yourself patience. He did split the fan base from the posters, but the posters aren't going to read it that way.

A&M gets 6 more games to change the subject, and winning is the only thing that will. If the Aggies stack a couple of wins, this turns into a coach who stood up for his locker room. If they keep losing by double digits, this press conference becomes the clip everyone pulls up when people start asking about Elko's future.